Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/61

 34 under some compact, which appears to have been made for his riddance, between her predecessor and the Khakán Mangu.

Orgánah is described as possessing much beauty, wisdom, and influence, and as long as Mangu lived she was allowed to reign in peace. But he died in 1259, when a war of succession to the supreme Khakánate broke out between his brothers Irtukbuka and Kublai. In this strife, the Chaghatai princess appears to have taken no part, but she suffered nevertheless, for in 1261 she was driven from Almáligh by Algu (a great-grandson of Chingiz), who had been nominated by Irtukbuka to rule in her place, and to bring over the Chaghatai forces to assist him in his war with Kublai. Algu, however, betrayed his patron, who, abandoning Karakorum to his rival Kublai, marched against Almáligh, whence Algu had to fly for safety, first to Kashghar and Khotan, and finally to Samarkand. Irtukbuka spent the winter of 1263 in Almáligh, devastating the district and putting to death many of Algu's followers. By these excesses he weakened his own army and resources to so great a degree, that he had to submit to Kublai and make peace with Algu, stipulating to retain for himself a portion only, of the eastern part of the Chaghatai Khanate. These transactions brought about not only a reconciliation between Algu and Orgánah, but a marriage. Both, however, died within a few months, and Irtukbuka, having done homage to Kublai, by prostrating himself at the door of Kublai's tent, the latter remained supreme from Peking to Transoxiana, and acquired the title of Khakán. He was the "Great Kaán" of Marco Polo.

But a rival was beginning to show himself in the person of Kaidu, a grandson of Oktai. This prince was plotting, in western Kipchák, for the assistance of his uncle Batu, in asserting his claim to the province of Turkistan—the north-western division of the Chaghatai Khanate—and probably also for the region then becoming known as Moghulistan, which lay immediately to the eastward of Turkistan, and comprised the Zungar country, already alluded to. At the death of Algu, Kublai nominated Mubárak Shah, a son of Algu and Orgánah, to the Chaghatai succession, but immediately afterwards is said to have appointed, as his vice-regent, another great-grandson of Chaghatai, named Borák (or Barák), to support Mubárak Shah in resisting Kaidu. So far from assisting the young Khan, Borák drove him from the throne, made common cause with Kaidu, and for a time exercised joint sovereignty